Ships Slowly Sailing
by ramenpandaa
Summary: The Capitol knows all. Or so it thinks. Everyone has a hidden thought, a dark secret, a guarded memory. And even the Capitol can't take those away. An attempt at snippet oneshots. Rated T because it's the Hunger Games.
1. Too Late

**A/N:** So, I've decided to try my hand at little snippets! (I shan't dare to call them drabbles, because they're not exactly 100 words.) If anyone could give me a good term for them, that would be appreciated, haha. :)

I don't own anything.

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**TOO LATE (Clove/Cato)**

When Cato dies, Katniss doesn't feel relief.

Katniss doesn't feel happiness.

Katniss doesn't feel joy, or ecstasy, or any of those emotions.

No, nothing like that.

When Cato dies, all Katniss thinks about is that other little girl.

Clove.

That's her name right?

All Katniss thinks about is Clove's death.

About how when Thresh held that rock over her head, fear came into those cocky brown eyes.

Real, genuine, fear.

About how when Thresh smashed that rock into her head, she called for help.

Help from Cato.

About how when Thresh dropped her like a stone onto the ground, Cato came running, sprinting through the grass.

Too late.

All Katniss thinks about is Clove's death.

And that maybe, in a different world-

Cato and Clove could have survived together.

Should have.

Their love was real, at least.

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**A/N:** So, how was it? I will probably write some more, just for when I'm bored, but _should_ I continue? Review, please! :)


	2. Fire Rising

**FIRE RISING (Johanna)**

Johanna Mason was- _is- _a child of the trees.

They talked to her, whispered in her ear, told her deep, dark secrets.

Things she shouldn't have known.

Like her mother's infidelity.

Or her father's crippling depression.

Her family was never together, never whole, never perfect.

But they were enough for her.

So why had it taken Snow's brutal iron fist-

hours of listening to them cry out in agony,

hours of watching them writhe in wreaths of brilliant blazing reds and yellows and oranges,

hours of sobbing over soggy, broken, charred remains

-to realize it?

When Johanna looks at the star-crossed lovers, all she sees is fire.

It takes all her willpower to convince herself that it's the good kind of fire.

Cinna's fire.

Fire that isn't meant to collapse, to hurt, to destroy.

That's all it's ever done to her.

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**A/N:** I've always liked Johanna Mason :3 She's so tantalizingly complex (from the hints she drops) yet Suzanne Collins never really gives us a good backstory on her. So did it do her justice? Review, please! :)


	3. Wrong

**WRONG (Beetee)**

Beetee never thought he was a murderer.

The Capitol was the murderer.

Those 24 children, every year, torn away from their friends and families.

Thrown into an arena carefully and meticulously plotted.

Hacking, sawing, killing_._

"_Only one comes out alive."_

They had to kill.

That's why Beetee wasn't a murderer.

He had to kill. He didn't _want_ to.

The four Careers that were left, they couldn't kill each other.

They had become acquaintances, comrades, _friends. _

So one quiet day, Beetee killed them together, electrocuting the life right out of them.

They were happy when they died, at least.

Laughing over lunch.

Friends.

Beetee wasn't a murderer.

There was no blood on his hands.

There was no malicious gleam in his eyes.

It had to happen. No way 'round it.

But when those packages drop into the circle around the mansion-

exploding

burning

destroying-

Beetee never thought he was a murderer.

But he also never thought he'd be wrong.

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**A/N: **How was it? Did you like it? :) Review, please! :D


	4. Embarrassed

**EMBARRASSED (Finnick/Annie)**

The first time Finnick saw Annie, she was swimming.

Her long brown hair splayed out like tendrils of softly reaching seaweed, floating under the water.

Her laughing blue-green eyes, matching the emerald-sapphire tone of the sea.

Her brilliant smile, all pearly-white teeth and happiness.

Finnick stared, mesmerized.

That's when Annie called out to him.

"Come in! The water's amazing!"

Finnick wanted to go in the water.

He wanted to go swim with spirited, smiling, _beautiful_ Annie Cresta.

But for once he was bashful, embarrassed, shy even.

Finnick Odair, youngest victor of the Hunger Games, Capitol plaything, was embarrassed to go swimming.

He knew why, of course.

He was embarrassed because of his Capitol body, all lean muscle and artificially sun-kissed tan skin.

He was embarrassed because of his abused body, all drugged and _appropriated_ for the Capitol's uses.

He was embarrassed because _it was Annie Cresta._

Spirited, smiling, _beautiful_ Annie Cresta.

And for once, Finnick was embarrassed of what the Capitol made him.

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**A/N: **Whoo, I actually got two done today! :D Please, if you want more, read over Broken and send in some suggestions! Review please :)


	5. Conspirator

**Conspirator (Cinna)**

Nobody ever knew Cinna's last name.

He was simply Cinna, nothing more, nothing less.

The Girl on Fire's designer, clever with fabric, clever with jewels, clever with the very elements themselves.

Portia's best friend, confidant, companion. (The Capitol noticed, of course.)

The spreader of the Rebellion, coating his pieces in dark thoughts and deep concepts, transforming little girls into Mockingjays and making them catch fire.

Cinna was always a poet.

His clothes were art.

But art had to _mean_ something.

So Cinna became a conspirator as well.

The Capitol had destroyed everything he had.

His true love, reaped in her last year of eligibility, hacked to death by a hulking monster from District 2.

His parents, killed by Peacekeepers for speaking out against the Capitol.

His best friend, reaped in his last year, returning a broken, savage, animal. Gone.

Cinna was born Cinna the Poet.

But the Capitol made him Cinna the Conspirator.

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**A/N:** How was it? :D Review please!


	6. Losing Catnip

**LOSING CATNIP (Gale)**

Gale isn't exactly sure what he feels for Katniss Everdeen.

He's never lacked admirers.

He's never had a shortage of girls to hug and kiss behind the slag heap, to do _things_ with.

Even after it was blatantly obvious that's all he wanted to do with them.

He wasn't ashamed to admit it, either.

But Katniss Everdeen is different.

Gale doesn't think about those things when he's with Katniss.

He thinks about her wry smile, her light laughter, the way her eyes sparkle in the sunlight.

And when she's in the Arena, with that baker's son, he feels jealousy for the first time.

Real jealousy.

Jealousy that makes him moody, violent, vicious.

Katniss is his. Peeta can't-_won't_- take her away from him.

And when Gale finally loses his Catnip, after the Bombing-

He realizes how right he was.

Peeta didn't take her away from him.

He did.

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**A/N: **Ack, these are so much easier to write than multichapter fics. Broken is still on hiatus, sorry. Review please! :)


	7. Hard Decisions

**LOSE-LOSE (Boggs)**

Boggs wasn't always President Coin's right-hand man.

He used to live in District 2.

Masonry. Weapons. Peacekeepers.

District 2 was well-off for a district.

But Boggs knew there was something wrong.

When he watches the Hunger Games every year, it breaks his heart.

He should've been one of them.

A tribute in the Games.

A piece on the Capitol's chessboard.

He'd been trained for a long, long time.

Chosen to volunteer.

But the day of the Reaping, he ran away.

Far, far away.

He tells people it's the best decision he's ever made.

He's free from the oppression and fear and tyranny the Capitol casts over the districts.

But he doesn't tell people the other side of the story.

His girlfriend, picked to die with him, electrocuted from the tiniest brush with the fence.

His parents, murdered for his rebellion.

The two helpless, _reaped_ tributes that died in his place.

Boggs regrets his decision dearly.

No one told him living would come at a greater cost than dying.

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**A/N: **Wow, that one's kinda long :/ Review please! :)


	8. Nightlock

**NIGHTLOCK (Foxface)**

Before Katniss brought the nightlock up to her lips as a means of saving herself, another girl did too.

A girl with hair red as fire and a blazing intellect, wise beyond her years.

Foxface.

AKA Kumiho Faraday, No. 80863 Batch E.

District 5 is a place full of secrets, of mystery, intrigue.

Kumiho knows she is not normal, even in such a place.

She is an experiment.

They said she was a successful one.

They said she wouldn't be reaped.

They said she was too useful.

But still, she finds herself on a train heading towards the Capitol.

Towards certain death.

Until the end, she is still calculating, stealing, surviving.

Then she sees the nightlock.

Purple, juicy berries, laced with morning dew and the deadliest poisons known to man.

They're muttations too, Kumiho knows.

She helped create them.

Cyanide. Arsenic. Hemlock. Belladonna. A fatal dose of each is packed inside the little things.

The Capitol wants her to fight, right? That's all they want. A good show.

Kumiho brings the nightlock to her lips. She will die a quick, silent, painless death.

_Goodbye, cruel world._


End file.
